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Advice for recent RC?

hchamz123hchamz123 Free Trial Member
in December 2017 LSAT 74 karma

I'm getting between -4 and -7 on the more recent RC, and I'm wondering how I should review these sections, and what I should be doing differently. I read for the organization/structure and take note of author attitude/opinion, and main points. I also underline names and key words.
I'm not sure what else I can do in the allotted time. Do people quickly skim the questions first to get a sense of what to look for, or is this generally pointless?

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  • 1000001910000019 Alum Member
    3279 karma

    How are you doing on time? Do you frequently miss a certain type of question?
    I don't know many people that skim the questions first (for RC).

  • hchamz123hchamz123 Free Trial Member
    74 karma

    @10000019 said:
    How are you doing on time? Do you frequently miss a certain type of question?
    I don't know many people that skim the questions first (for RC).

    I often am a bit tight towards the end, but I usually can still finish the questions without randomly guessing. I'll usually have about 7-8 minutes to do the last passage, unless the first couple were especially easy. I spend a lot of time on each question though. I read somewhere else that you should spend 4 minutes reading the passage and 4 minutes doing questions. Thoughts?

  • 1000001910000019 Alum Member
    3279 karma

    I'm a bit of a RC slump myself so take my tips with a grain of salt...
    Are you using POE of every question in RC? If so, I don't think that's practical (especially for the first couple of passages which are usually easier).
    If you spend a lot of time answering the questions, I don't see how 7-8 minutes is adequate for the last passage.

    Do you regularly get a certain question type wrong?
    What is the distribution of your wrong answers?

  • hchamz123hchamz123 Free Trial Member
    edited November 2017 74 karma

    It's not so much question type. I checked the tool 7sage offers, and it really is a mix-up. I almost always suck at the science passages because I get so caught up in trying to understand the concepts being explained. I'm not a science person. When I'm scoring -6 or -7, it is usually b/c I've bombed nearly the entire science section.

  • ahg_7700ahg_7700 Alum Member
    64 karma

    I was in the exact same place with RC as you were a few weeks ago. What really helped me get down to -0/-2 was slowing down my RC process entirely. It may sound counterintuitive, but I spent a few weeks doing the RC from PT 1-35 untimed. I focused on just reading through the passage and writing down separately the main point and any key notations (i.e. "big words," shifts in scope/topic, author's opinion, etc.). I then answered the questions just from my notes without looking back at the passage. This helped me ID what I was consistently missing and I got a better sense of reading for structure and the bigger ideas of the passage. Once I went back to timing myself, I found that I got more questions correct and that I had a better sense the overall structure of passages and could predict a good number of the questions ahead of time.

  • hchamz123hchamz123 Free Trial Member
    74 karma

    @ahg_7700 said:
    I was in the exact same place with RC as you were a few weeks ago. What really helped me get down to -0/-2 was slowing down my RC process entirely. It may sound counterintuitive, but I spent a few weeks doing the RC from PT 1-35 untimed. I focused on just reading through the passage and writing down separately the main point and any key notations (i.e. "big words," shifts in scope/topic, author's opinion, etc.). I then answered the questions just from my notes without looking back at the passage. This helped me ID what I was consistently missing and I got a better sense of reading for structure and the bigger ideas of the passage. Once I went back to timing myself, I found that I got more questions correct and that I had a better sense the overall structure of passages and could predict a good number of the questions ahead of time.

    This is really great advice, and I only wish I had asked sooner. I'll do some reading like this with a couple recent tests, and hope that it strengthens my reading process enough before next week. I think this could save me at least a point or two, and every point counts...Thank you!!!

  • AlexAlex Alum Member ⭐
    23929 karma

    @ahg_7700 said:
    I was in the exact same place with RC as you were a few weeks ago. What really helped me get down to -0/-2 was slowing down my RC process entirely. It may sound counterintuitive, but I spent a few weeks doing the RC from PT 1-35 untimed. I focused on just reading through the passage and writing down separately the main point and any key notations (i.e. "big words," shifts in scope/topic, author's opinion, etc.). I then answered the questions just from my notes without looking back at the passage. This helped me ID what I was consistently missing and I got a better sense of reading for structure and the bigger ideas of the passage. Once I went back to timing myself, I found that I got more questions correct and that I had a better sense the overall structure of passages and could predict a good number of the questions ahead of time.

    I also think doing some untimed RC is good advice. I would also attribute this to helping me gain some consistency on RC.

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